Sunday, July 18, 2010

LAPTOP/MONITOR SCREEN VERY DIM OR DOES NOT ILLUMINATE

A question I am often asked is "How can I tell if the backlight or inverter has failed on my laptop/monitor as I can only just make out an image?"
The answer is that there are several causes of a dim display or the failure of a backlight to illuminate the screen. As most people are aware, inverter and backlight failure are the most common. Other causes are:- a faulty or damaged LCD/Inverter cable, Faulty motherboard and a faulty screen.
Firstly try the obvious!
There is a little switch usually located near the hinge which switches the display off when the lid is closed. This can sometimes get jammed and is easily overlooked. It might simply be a question of unjammimg it or making some sort of repair to it.
Most laptops are able to toggle between an external display and the built in screen. Sometimes the laptop can get confused so it is worth toggling between external and built in screen. As most have several different settings it is worth doing this several times. If the laptop screen flashes when you do this it would indicate that the inverter is trying to start the backlight. This means that there is a good chance that either the backlight or inverter has failed but does not totally rule out the other components.
It may also be worth resetting the bios as these settings can sometimes be lost especially if the cmos battery is on its way out or has been disturbed.

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